Editing Lovedagger (section)

== Lovedagger 40000 ==

In the cold darkness of the 41st millennium, there is only sorrow. Her Exalted Majesty the Empress has lain in deathless sleep for 10,000 years, frozen in a coffin of gold and crystal provided by Horus' final act of love, surrounded by blood-red roses and vigilant knights. In her slumber, the Imperia has fallen into chaos: treachery, sorrow, and forbidden desire are the rule of the day, and the Space Marines, brave men and women, pure of heart and shaped by the Empress' mercy into living weapons, barely hold back the forces of darkness - from without, as well as from within their tortured hearts. The proud but indomitable orks carve a trail of destruction through space, and the servants of chaos - shaped by dark powers into terrible and beautiful forms - spread pain wherever they go. - The OP Post

=== Imperia ===

The aesthetic of the Imperium changes. Warhammer is visually inspired a great deal by heavy metal culture, which appeals to male geeks, but it's less popular with the female ones. Catholic/Gothic elements absolutely remain, but industrial ones become a lot more subdued. Imperial architecture, technology and cybernetics look a lot more organic, possibly Giger-esque (inspired by the visuals of the manga BLAME!). Skull imagery is replaced with rose imagery (to fit with the Empress' story).

Imperial technology is heavily based on nanotech, but it is poorly understood and regarded with spiritual reverence. The nanomechanical fluid is symbolic of the blood and water which are central to female-centric spirituality. As such, the Mechanicus now focus their worship on the black liquid "Sang Mechanica", which drives a lot of their machines. STC's are now womb-like in function, literally "growing" objects within the Sang Mechanica. Rather than becoming hideously deformed with obvious robot parts, the Mechanicus inject themselves with the Sang to attain longevity oneoness with technology. This makes them look like implant-less Borg, with pale, darkly veined skin and glowing eyes. Since they view themselves as "hideous" (in best trashy teengirl romance tradition) they hide their deformity under beatific porcelain masks and elaborate hoods. Also fitting with the themes of Lovedagger, they are no longer as machine-like in behavior - rather than replacing parts of their brain with computer, they merely augment it to Mentat-like ability while retaining emotional capacity. They do STRUGGLE to be wholly logical and passionless, but their struggle is spiritual, not neurological. They occasionally falter, and suffer from great internal anguish as a result.

The Imperia's signature weapon, rather than being the brutal and industrial looking bolter, is called the javel. It fires tiny, homing, explosive-tipped micromissiles which have a less gory effect than bolters, emphasizing both the facts that the Imperia is (a tiny little bit) more about accuracy than power compared to the Imperium and that their technological shtick is nanomechanics. Space Marine javels are fully automatic and considerably bulkier (though still very slick compared to the boxlike bolters), while inquisitors carry ornate, oversized "javel revolvers" which are not automatic but can fire a variety of specialized, large caliber round (including one which bursts in a shotgun-like fashion and releases a half dozen smaller, homing javel darts). Since conflict in Lovedagger tends to be subtler and more nuanced than in the Warhammer setting, these weapons are ideal for inquisitors whose needs might include such things as taking their enemies alive, neutralizing escaping targets, or fighting in enclosed environments. 

The Imperial Guard still uses flashlights, because guardsmen who wouldn't die just aren't real guardsmen, in any universe.

==== The Empress ====

The Empress is less of a warrior king and more of a universal mother figure, wise, loving and all-nurturing. Her story focuses on the tragic aspects of her work: despite her love for all humanity, she was forced to commit terrible deeds and it burdened her soul. She was in love with Horus and when he betrayed her (because she chose duty to humanity as a species rather than her love for him personally), it was the grief that broke her, not the rage. Yet, after striking her down, filled with remorse, Horus decided to give her parting gift before leaving for the Eye of Terror: a final, gentle kiss, and a gold-and-crystal coffin which preserved her body (and her beauty - rotting corpses on thrones aren't romantic), but left her hanging between life and death for ten thousand years. Her "throne room" in the Imperial Palace is actually more of an impossibly grandiose tomb, and she is surrounded at all times by millions of frozen, blood-red roses, each representing the sacrifice of a soul to the Astronomican. Her guards watch over her body in an image taken from symbolic depiction of the tales of Snow White and the Sleeping Beauty.

==== Space Marines ====

You have Space Marines of both genders so you have the Chapters Sororitas and the Chapters Fraternitas. Among the Space Marines themselves, the Sororitas are known as the Blessed and the Fraternitas are the Tarnished. The Fraternitas call themselves the Unforgiven as every male Space Marine hails from a Legion that fell to Chaos.

Primarchs are Champions of humanity who were infused with the Empress's Love and raised to positions of power in the Imperium

Space Wolves get special nano-augs that allow them to literally turn into giant biomechanical wolves, complete with their armor. While they still serve in frontline combat, their primary purpose is to serve as trackers and hunters for the Deathwatch (their biomechanical wolf forms have supreme sensor arrays - "they sniff Xenos", basically). They are selected for the job by female Valkyries who wander the tundras of Fenris.

Names of minor Loyalist chapters in Lovedagger 40K:
* Rosen Guard
* Resplendent Roses
* Blooded Violets
* Thornwives
* Screaming Nightingales 
* Vestal Doves
* Swan Maidens
* Tenders (of the Garden)
* Mournful Criers (at the death of the Empress, symbolically)
* Cradle Guard 
* Medusae

New names of the Loyal Fraternitas:
* White Scars: '''Pale Riders'''
* Iron Warriors: '''Her Steel Shields'''
* Luna Wolves: '''Penitent Sons'''
* World Eaters: '''Warhounds'''
* Death Guard: '''Knights Vigilant'''
* Thousand Sons: '''Crimson Eyes'''

==== Imperial Guard ====

Lovedagger isn't genderbent Warhammer, it's a differently focused setting. The imperial guard has the same male-female ratio it has in Warhammer, it's just that more women are shown since the important scenes are about character development and interaction, not battles.

That said, the IG might very well be the least represented army in the Lovedagger universe. Faceless, expendable, and with few purposes outside open warfare, they are the very definition of the "war as a background" mentality described above. Stories of heroic death and anguish of INDIVIDUAL guardsmen would exist, but the IG as an ARMY would mostly appear in the form of references by other characters.

 &mdash; Say, Lady Valeria, didn't two billion guardsmen die to secure the garden we're currently partying in?
 &mdash; But what a beautiful garden it is.

However, stories of individual guardsmen there would be in this setting and while we pay less attention to the war they participate in, we focus more on the story and conflict of what it means to be sent across the galaxy to do or die. Expect lingering shots of letters sent from front lines the galaxy over back to homes far flung.

*'''Individual guard regiments'''
**'''Steel Legion''': The individual stories that come from the Legion would of what it means fight and to continue to keep the will to live in order to protect those you care about. Be it though the invasion of the chaos to the twin ork invasions the Steel Legion's goal has been to protect the hives and the civilians, and very often there own family's, within.
**'''Catachan Jungle Fighters''': the Catachans are a people of big hearts, when your grow up on a planet that despite the best efforts (and there have been attempts) of entire army's every moment becomes precious and so they are the archetypal 'live in the moment guys', so ya basically they are what Americans like to think of themselves as. As fits there Vietnam origins however they would be some of the main victims of 'war is hell' and, lets be honest here with the way they all look like hyper masculine body builders, Yaoi stories.
**'''Krieg''': Perhaps the most unchanged group in Lovedagger. Krieg remains the heavy industrial dieselpunk german world war one guardsmen they are in canon. The difference is that the camera lingers on the contrast. While the backdrop may be gunmetal gray pill boxes and machine gun nests, we stop panning at the little touches of humanity, the blooming flower boxes and the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_art carved brass shell casings]. Stories that used guardsmen of Krieg would be stories of what it's like for a literally mass produced soldier, cloned and designed for war and battle, when the war is over. Unlike in 40k where the Imperium would immediately shuffled off them off to another warzone or liquidated the survivors the Imperia focus on resocializing what is depicted as a necessary evil to fight her wars back to common society. To do so they go to great ends to get people born and bred as soldiers to become civilians, from cultural exchange programs, to using commissars to try and convince the Kriegsmen to stop digging trenches for fun and go get a drink, to [[Love and Krieg|starting dating websites]] to get guardsmen of Krieg to interact with people outside of their closed-off regiments.
**'''Elysian Drop Troops''': "Elysian" is defined as "of, relating to, or characteristic of heaven or paradise.", and in Lovedagger this is more obvious. Elysian would be a non-grimdark place to make the human story and disconnect of leaving that for a basic training, the focus of there story.
**Tanith First (And Only): Kinda the same they are in canon.

=== Dark Powers ===

Dark Powers are the analogue to Chaos Gods. They are:

* '''Tzeentch''' <br /> is no longer "The Lord of Change". Sure, he retains all of his old aspects (change, magic, all those things), but his aspect is that of the Lord of Treachery, and his focus is on lies, illusion and deception.

* '''Slaanesh''' <br /> goes from the Lord of Excess into a more broadly defined "Lord of Desire". He's the guy behind the physical, loveless relationship that you know is terrible for you and your heart and brain tell you to stop, but your body can't help but want.

* '''Nurgle's''' <br /> (aside from his diseases becoming less disfiguring and more of a Victorian "cough blood, be pale") aspect as the Lord of Entropy turns him, in the Lovedagger setting, into the Lord of Despair. As the ruler of emotional stagnation, he governs dark romances whose passion has died out, and both parties know it, but neither has the courage to kill so they all linger in unhappiness.

* '''Khorne''' <br /> goes from the Lord of Bloodshed into the Lord of Fury. Fury is visceral, but it's also more broadly defined. It's possible to be furious on the battlefield, but also in personal life. Also in society. A politician, a lover or a scientist can be ruled by Fury. Champions of Khorne are probably less "steroid munching lump of steel and muscle", and more like those creepy anime bad guys with the long bishie hair who lick blood off their swords and jizz their pants at the thought of meeting a "worthy enemy", because battle to them is a release.

*'''Malal''' <br /> In Lovedagger Malal goes from lost intellectual property to a horror that makes Orks quiver and Tyranids recoil when they chance a wiff of It's power. For Malal is not a god of emotion. Deception, Desire, Fury, even Despair are all emotions, but Malal is the Antithesis of that. Malal in Lovedagger is the God of Emptiness, of the emotional death of a man while his heart still beats. Malal is the only god who create cults that twist with emotions as if they where toys not with the goal of spreading influence but to destroy and beat down the emotions of every body, for when the warp is calm, silent, dead and not perturbed by feelings of the living is when Malal is at It's strongest.

=== Other races ===

==== Tau ====

While many "evil" races become more morally ambiguous in Lovedagger, the Tau ironically become a lot more evil and grimdark. Their rigid, caste-bound society is presented as spiritually and emotionally stifling, and the Tau themselves as nearly robotic overlords who wish to impose their passionless existence on all life. (of course, fitting with the themes of the game there are still [[Farsight|good, passionate, rebellious Tau]] - but theirs are tragic, dramatic personal stories)

==== Orks ====

Orks are either noble savages, glorious warriors or (now that the new Mad Max film came out) basically War Boys. They are a lot less ridiculous and are shown in a more positive light, even if they're still the enemy. The matter of their reproduction always causes arguments since spores make more sense but it's hard to make romantic characters out of a race that has no sex drive. One option is to make them not romantic, but IMPASSIONED - they have a human being's emotional depth, but it is focused on the glory and joy of combat. They can only see "love" through the lens of battle. "Die historic on fury road" IS, to the orks, true love and so Ork tech works in this world not from a "gestalt psychic field" but from their passion that for other races is directed toward other thinking beings to their machines. You know that one guy who loves his car so much he will throw a massive hissy fit if it gets a scratch? That's the orks, only that their stuff is being held together by that love.

==== Necrons ====

Necrons in Lovedagger are like a beautiful and unstoppable horror, majority of them not really people. They aren't hunched Skeletons anymore. Now, they're massive faceless, Deathsteel, statues with the various Lords and Nobles having faces and decorations.

Lovedagger is about individuals. It doesn't matter if 99.99999% of the race is made up of terminators so long as the nobility are sentient space pharaohs. Especially if you focus on the brooding, self-hating "I have lived for a billion years and saw everything that I love either die or leave, yet this cold necrodermis heart does not beat" shenanigans.
There should be space for diverse motivations. Some are ancient kings, loathing their current state and longing for love, some are content with their life and try to make their territory a decent place, that just happens to be controlled by an army of terminators (which is a source of conflict for them), some are operatic villains out to satisfy their avarice, etc. Some times the story shifts to that of individual Necrons warriors who remember only ghosts and bare images of there past lives and being left to search the embers of there memory's for something to keep them going beyond hollow programming.

==== Tyranids ====

Keep Tyranids pretty much as-is, but maybe give a bit more individual personality to their leaders. Humans (especially astropaths) are uniquely suited to becoming living CPUs for the Hivemind, as thanks or for convenience those "queens" who have joined willingly or have been outright kidnapped are allowed to keep some of their personality and gain a little influence over their hivefleet.

All are still very much subordinate to the Hivemind as a whole though, So the typical backstabbing and politicking is not present among Tyranid "nobility". They go about it in different ways but they all serve the will of the Great Devourer in the end.

Genestealers probably become more dramatically prevalent. Maybe there could be a genestealer empire somewhere in the fringes that's slowing sinking its fangs into Empire territory, and serves as a foothold for extra-galactic hive fleets to come into the galaxy

==== Eldar ====

Eldar are a tragic race. Dying and doomed but always struggling.

"Tall", "strong", "fast", "graceful" - these are all words that describe Eldar but there is one other crucial trait they possess. This is the trait that led them to greatness and it is also the trait that led them to their doom: they never do things half-way.

Driven to perfection by their very nature, they once had a mighty civilization built on passion. Great works were created, farthest reaches explored, a mere description of their romance would make a human's heart stop. But passion is ruinous. Great Love led them to Anger, it led them to Despair, it led them to Treachery, and most of all it led them to Desire... and that's how the youngest of Dark Powers was born, in burning hearts of Eldar.

Now, they're but a shadow of their former empire, utterly diminished. True to their nature, their hearts are still burning but they don't love anymore. Eldar have forbidden love, for love leads to Anger, to Despair, to Treachery, to Desire, to Ruin.

==== Leagues Of Votann/Squats ====